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Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Chapter five – Gatsby’s offer to “pay”
Nick for his favor made me think that apart from his choice of getting rich,
Jay Gatsby is quite a nice person. He is very polite, hate of asking favor from
friends (his intricate ways in asking Nick to arrange meeting with Daisy), and
he is the only one who doesn’t drink. And when he loves a woman, he respects
her, and is loyal to her to the end.

According to
Careless People, T.S. Eliot’s poem
The Waste Land has major influence in Fitzgerald’s ideas for writing Gatsby—not the plot, but the general
theme and atmosphere. I have never read Eliot, and this can be my good excuse
to mark him.

Now, I have
mentioned in my previous post about Gatsby
as a “novel noir”. So We Read On
dedicated a chapter titled Rhapsody in
Noir to discuss this; and it’s very interesting. First of all, the origin
of Gatsby’s real name “Gatz” is gat—a
slang for ‘gun’ in the twenties. There are at least three deaths caused by gun
in this story. And don’t forget the car crashes that happened too many in such a
short story (including Tom Buchanan’s which then revealed his affair with a
chambermaid only a week after his marriage with Daisy!). Add it all with the
desolate valley of ashes, the abandoned billboard of the oculist, and Wilson’s
shabby garage. Yes… this is not a romantic story of unrequited love or the lost
of illusion; it is the gloomy image that Fitzgerald felt was happening in
America—emptiness and deadliness. Corrigan even questioned about Myrtle’s
accident: “Who can say for certain whether Daisy’s hit-and-run murder of
Myrtle, her husband’s mistress, is just an accident or a subconscious homicidal
drive realized?” Yeah… that has made me shiver a little! And horrifyingly, it
made sense to me.

Gatsby-Daisy’s
reunion is full of emotion. Daisy was crying, but for what? Remember when
Gatsby thrown his colorful shirts and Daisy cried? Of course she’s crying not because
she has never seen such beautiful shirts before, but I think, because she lamented
her faith of being a wife of the brutal man: Tom. If only she had waited for
three more years, she would have had a rich AND loving husband: Gatsby. But
after their trip, where Tom confronted Gatsby, and Gatsby persuaded her to flee
with him, I think Daisy got so confused… and drunk. I think she realized that
Gatsby would never fit in her circle—no matter how she loved him, her husband
would always be Tom. But then seeing his mistress on the road… I don’t know
whether she knew about Myrtle or not—probably she did—but that is enough to
lead her to Corrigan’s homicidal theory.

I am still wondering
about the history of Gatsby’s mansion which Nick told us, particularly this
passage: “Americans, while occasionally willing to be serfs, have always been
obstinate about being peasantry”. To what exactly did Fitzgerald want to allude
with it? What do you think?

Monday, June 19, 2017

Chapter four
and five are awesome! Chapter five, especially, as this is where Gatsby-Daisy
reunion took place. They are short, but hey!...there are so many interesting things
I want to share, that I decided to only pour out my thoughts on chapter four in
this post, and will write another post for chapter five. Here are my personal
notes from the book itself and two companion books that I am reading along with
Gatsby.

Chapter four -- The big question that arose
from Gatsby’s and Nick’s chatting on their trip to New York for lunch is
whether Gatsby was boasting or telling the truth, when he told Nick about his
background. Fitzgerald never told us the truth (what is exactly Gatsby’s
business, for example?); Gatsby remains a mystery. I think some of what Gatsby
told Nick might be true, but the way he boasted it made Nick think he’s lying.
Fitzgerald also boasted often in parties he was invited. It’s rather touching
to see them—“nobody from nowhere”—in their struggles to climb the social
ladder, not to be regarded as nobody.

On the same
trip to New York, Nick laughed when “some negroes in limousine rode passed them
with haughty rivalry”. This is the second time I noticed a bit of racism in
this book, but maybe at that time, it’s not counted as racism. It’s just to
show how Fitzgerald—or the American—felt that the nation was on the brink of
changes, and that “everything is possible”. The hearse that also passed them
creates a dark atmosphere into this story—something I have not realized until
Sarah Churchwell labeled Gatsby as “noir
novel” in Careless People. And to
think of how many tragic deaths that had happened or told in the story; not only
of Myrtle, Wilson, and Gatsby, but also “Rosy” Rosenthal—apparently a real
person—of whom Meyer Wolfshiem witnessed the shoot.

Careless People revealed to me that
Gatsby and Daisy are inspired by Fitzgerald’s (unrequited) love story. Young
Scott was in love with Ginevra King, one of the rising debutantes in pre-war
Chicago. Ginevra rejected him and later married a wealthy young man from her
own circle. Fitzgerald took it that she discarded him because he was poor. Only
on my second careful read of Gatsby
that I realized how Daisy’s feeling about Gatsby and Tom. On her wedding dinner
she was torn between love and money (she chose love when “drunk like a monkey”
but eventually picked money after cooled up and could use her logic).

I wonder
about the final paragraph of chapter four: “Unlike Gatsby and Tom Buchanan, I
had no girl whose disembodied face
floated along the dark cornices and blinding signs...” What does it mean?

Friday, June 9, 2017

Brutal and
violent! Zola is all out in this fifteenth novel of The Rougon Macquart cycle.
I can feel how Zola’s love for his land was woven into an intense and emotional
novel. And the blow! His crude way in telling the story really surprised me
this time—the brutal rape and murder scenes… particularly the last one (yes,
there’s more than one murder!). It really haunted me for few days.

Jean
Macquart made his first appearance here (he will return in The Debacle),
as an itinerant farm labourer on a small village, Rognes. Just like Etienne
Lantier in Germinal, Jean was an outsider who became involved with Rognes peasants,
particularly with the Fouan family. It all began when Old Fouan, being too old
for working the land and longing for peaceful old age, divided the family’s
land equally to his three children. From that day on the greedy children tirelessly
scrambling over the ownership of even a strip of land, while ruthlessly abandon
their parents to poverty and sorrow.

Here Zola
highlighted the stubborn, blinded love towards the earth which then led to
greed and savagery, even towards their parents and siblings. I can only
imagine, when this book was first published, how shocked I were have I lived in
the nineteenth century! No wonder some has regarded The Earth as one of Zola’s finest achievements, comparable to Germinal and L’Assommoir. I agree! The lyrical prose is still beautiful in some passages,
but, at least for me, the severe of “the blow” is just second after L’Assommoir.

Thursday, June 8, 2017

The last few
days having been hectic, and I didn’t have time to write about second chapter.
So, this time (and maybe until the end of this readalong) I will compile few
chapters in one post.

Chapter 2 is
all about the green light and ash heaps (the valley of ashes).

Sarah
Chuchwell, in Careless People, argued
that the green light, toward which Nick has seen Gatsby stretched his hand, was
probably inspired by the confusing new traffic signal in New York in 1922. The
traffic signal tower that had newly been built on Fifth Avenue used “green” to
indicate “stop”, while in any other railroad signals, green always the sign for
“go”. This eventually led to many accidents. Fitzgerald could have used this
phenomenon to write the famous gesture of Jay Gatsby’s stretching hand towards
the green light—it might be that Gatsby misread the green lamp as permission to
proceed, when in reality it told him to stop. What do you think?

Fitzgerald’s
the valley of ashes might have been inspired by the Corona Dumps, the mountainous
mound of fuel ash on a swampland beyond New York City—it was halfway between
New York and Great Neck. These dumps, I imagined, created a contrast between
the glamour of Manhattan and the grime of ashes, refuses, and even manure. The
1922 was said to be the age of advertising, when billboards could be seen
throughout the city. And in the midst of these ashes Fitzgerald has placed the
Dr. T.J. Ekcleburg billboard. Until now I have assumed that the giant eyes are
the eyes God, but Sarah Churchwell offers other possibility: it could represent
the new “god” that the New Yorkers worships: advertisings. It is indeed in accordance
with the whole theme of Gatsby: illusion.
I don’t know… I still have to think about it.

Chapter 3…
finally, we met the enigmatic Gatsby! Nick attends Gatsby’s glamorous party and
has been curious about his host. But when finally meeting him, Nick is
surprised to learn that Gatsby is not what he expected. From the glamorous
party, Nick expected Gatsby to be a “great” man, but in reality he is just
someone who wants to look great—“an elegant young rough-neck, a year or two
over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd”.

The party
reflects the heart of the Jazz Age, the Roaring Twenties. After the depressing
war, people are restless; they do not know what to do; just want to be amused.
Just what Daisy is in chapter one—laying on the sofa with Jordan, and later on
when Gatsby visited the Buchanans. But the same restlessness leads to
carelessness. Jordan’s reckless driving, for example, and that is the portrait
of New Yorkers at that time. Nick himself is restless when moving into Long
Island—maybe partly to avoid having to break his engagement?

Chapter two
of So We Read On (Corrigan do not
follow Gatsby’s structure) is about
how New York City has attracted dreamers. It promised success and glamour,
something greater and different, but it often ended up bad, and even destroying.
There is also a sense of change in the air—cultural change. Immigrants were coming
(for Tom: “Civilization’s going to pieces), and Americans does not know how to react
or where it would be heading.

Monday, June 5, 2017

I am
participating in this exciting readalong at Hamlette’s. It officially started
on June 1st, but I have had an early start about ten days ago. It is
that I will be moving to a new apartment during June, so my reading pace might
be slower this month. Another reason, my new books (two accompany books of The Great Gatsby) were so tempting, that
I couldn’t stop myself from reading it! So, yeah, I’m stealing the start—sorry Hamlette!
J

Following
recommendation in the preface of Careless
People, I decided to read The Great
Gatsby, Careless People, and So We Read Onsimultaneously. Following Gatsby,
Sarah Churchwell also divided Careless
People into nine chapters, developing her investigation of events around
Fitzgerald, following the story development of Gatsby. She even titled the chapters according to Fitzgerald’s original
outline list for writing Gatsby. I
had also taken a glimpse of So We Read On
(the Introduction)—it provides another side of background history of how Gatsby was produced. But for Gatsby, I decided to put double efforts.
First I will read first chapter of Gatsby,
then consulting the same chapter of Careless
People, and some pages of So We Read
On. Then I will use the insight information from both books to go back to Gatsby again. That way I hope to be able
to understand more on the making of The
Great Gatsby, and what has made Gatsby that
great.

Summary of 1st Chapter

In this
part, I will share what I got from Careless
People and So We Read On, or any
new perspective on Gatsby, which I
have got from both book.

Careless
People

Nick
Carraway is personification of Scott Fitzgerald in Gatsby. The resemblance is uncanny—in personal character
(judgmental); in their way of thinking (luxury lovers, but also moralists who
criticize its damaging effect).

In 1922 (the
year Nick moved to Long Island), Scott Fitz also moved from Middle West to
Manhattan. Several months later, there was a scandalous murder of an adulterous
couple (Hall & Mills), which, Sarah Churchwell believes, has inspired Gatsby. Other events that might have
inspired Fitzgerald: a car crash which has killed Charles Rumsey (celebrated Polo
player—an “old money”), and the arrival of a shady businessman called Tommy
Hitchcock who has moved into their neighbourhood. Seems familiar, eh? J

Interesting
point: What does the green light represent? Dream? Hope? Or the color of money?
We might have more suggestions on next chapter.

So We
Read On

There are so
many themes one can find in Gatsby.
This time (following Corrigan’s lead in the introduction of So We Read On), I will dig deeper into
these specific themes:

- Social class

- God no
longer exist

Speaking of
social class, Gatsby IS other
(half?) personification of Fitzgerald. Gatsby and Fitzgerald are both victim of
social class distinction—they were “Mr. Nobody from nowhere” who struggled to
belong to the “old money club”. Gatsby has got the money (through very hard
working, and even bootlegging), yet not the breed.

1st
chapter of So We Read On also speaks
about water references or symbols throughout the book. When combined with Sarah
Churchwell’s investigation about the confusion on the green traffic light
around 1924, the famous ending of Gatsby’s 1st chapter—Gatsby
reaching for the green light—could have a new meaning. I’m not too sure about
this, but let’s see.

The
Great Gatsby

Reading the
above two books has helped me to understand more on what Fitzgerald has tried
to tell us through this masterpiece, for which he had given his total effort. I
began to see why Nick put Gatsby above all the rest, that “in the end, Gatsby
is all right”, and furthermore, why “The Great Gatsby”. I have been wondering
all this time, what is Gatsby’s greatness? He has a dream, works hard to
achieve it—through shady businesses—but in the end still cannot reach it. Many
people do that, even more honestly! But now I believe that the greatness lays more
in the values that Gatsby (and Fitzgerald) believes. This is only my momentary
reflection; I will come back to this later after completing the book. But this
revelation excited me to delve deeper into this gem, and I can tell you that my
admiration to Mr. Fitzgerald keeps increasing along the chapters!